Epic launches on Steam

Valve is now offering the entire Epic back-catalog through Steam at a discounted price.

Epic has just announced that it will be launching the entire back catalog of Unreal games over Steam after teaming up with Valve. Sure, Epic is a little late to the Steam party - but at least we get another excuse to play Unreal Gold, eh?

Of course, at this point there are some many developers signed on to Valve's Steam distribution service that it'd be easier if we just got a list of everyone who wasn't teamed with Valve. Pretty much the only big PC developer that comes to mind is Electronic Arts, which uses a similar but proprietary digital distribution platform called EA Store.

Epic has announced the usual discounted catalog deal as other developers have to help publicise the move. Gamers will be able to pick up a digital copy of Unreal Gold, Unreal 2: The Awakening, Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition and Unreal Tournament 3 for just $53.95 (about £27).

If you've already got some of the above games though then don't despair - all Epic games are currently 10 percent off.

"Epic is a leading developer of game engine technology and has produced some of my favorite games of all time," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "It's an honor to be working with them and offering their current and classic titles to the millions of Steam gamers around the world."

Do you like Steam, or do you find the system scary and flaky? Let us know in the forums.

Thing is at the moment the games are more expensive when you convert them from USD to GBP and then you need to add tax. Steam UT3= USD44.95 ~= 22.50 + 17.5% vat = ~£26. Play.com UT3 = ~£15. No contest really. Steam used to be good and for valve i think it's still there or there about but for other devs its really quite expensive.

They don't want to support us, but they still want our charity for their ancient rubbish?! Well they can bollocks.

Since when is UT3 (and even UT2K4) ancient? Let alone rubbish. Why does it bother everyone so much that the next UT engine is console only? Really, how much better can graphics get? I consider Half-Life 2 to be the first game with 'next-gen' graphics, and since then, nothing has really amazed me. (The Bio Rifle in UT3 came close though. :P)

Originally Posted by rls669They can't. Retail chains won't carry a game if the digital download is cheaper. Stardock tries to sweeten the deal a bit by making every download a collector's edition with some extra content.

Rubbish, the orange box was considerably cheaper on steam than it was in Game or HMV.